Day 258: How To Live

Diet, Food and Weight
Eat fewer calories than you burn. Donut calories are harder to burn than lettuce calories. So, if you want to eat donuts, you’ll have to exercise a lot more, or eat fewer donuts. YOU KNOW THAT! It’s just math. If you’re really hungry and you don’t eat, you will probably lose weight. If you’re hungry and you eat until you’re full and feel gross, you will gain weight. There’s an interesting footnote to these rules. No amount of exercise can burn off lasagna. That doesn’t even make sense, does it? Forget all that stuff I said. Try eating only blueberries while hanging upside down for 9 hours or something.

Health
This isn’t really as important as people say it is. Some of the coolest, happiest people I know are heartbeats away from death and probably don’t even know it because they’re too busy enjoying stuff. Healthy people seem pretty miserable most of time trying to figure out where they can find kale and if they can “squeeze in a quick run.” Tell me, would you like to enjoy things for 65 years or be a pain in the ass for 85? If you insist on being healthy, stop buying books to make you feel like you’re taking a step in the right direction. I read somewhere that reading is the leading cause of obesity and heart disease. What I’m saying is, extinguish that Marlboro, spark up a Marlboro light, and put down the book.

Spirituality
This is basically a relaxing guilt free way to believe there’s something out there guiding stuff that doesn’t require us to get up early and kneel on wood while creepy people smile at us. It’s really convenient. Here’s a tip, if it makes you feel good, go stare at a tree for a few hours. If staring at a tree makes you feel awful, do something else that makes you feel good like talking to a parrot or farting on a crowded city bus. Just make sure that thing isn’t bad food, drugs or murder. Follow those rules and buy a Buddha for your garden and you might feel less empty. No idea really. What about living in the moment? Have you tried that? I hear that’s worked for a couple people.

Emotional well-being
This can be a tough one. I recommend lowering you standards and accepting that you’re gonna be sad a lot. If you’re sad for a really long time though, like a few weeks, take some drugs. Sorry, I’m not much help here. Maybe you should buy a book. There’s one on Amazon called Happiness: Learning the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment. Sounds promising, but who knows? Usually if you’re sad, you don’t really feel like “learning”, and the concepts of “joy” and “lasting fulfillment” just sort of piss you off and make you want to eat a cake. So maybe you shouldn’t read that book. Read a book about someone whose life is way worse than yours. Oh, have you seen Slumdog Millionaire? That usually busts me right out of a depression, but I’m weird, so it might make you feel way worse. Either way, let me know how it works out.

Social Life
Other people! Without them, how would we gauge our success or failure? Thank goodness they’re around so we can look at them and talk to them and determine if we’re fatter, sadder, and sicker. Just think, if you were the only person on earth, you would probably think you were perfect. Actually, the idea of perfection probably wouldn’t exist because without anything to compare yourself to, perfection would be the default state. Did that make sense? Because it sounded smart, and usually, when I write something I think sounds smart, it’s either trite or really flawed and stupid in a fundamental way that everyone except me can see immediately.

Family
Parents, wives, husbands, uncles, aunts, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers. A lot of different parts there and I’m sure I’m missing some. Did I say “aunts?” Yea, I did. Here’s how family boils down. They drive you completely insane, but it’s worth it to have someone around when you vomit. Family also gives you something to do. Too much free time results in cake eating and Buddha buying. So stay cool with your family because they’re the only people who really love you.

5 Comments

I have made kale chips (in an attempt this summer to outfox Whole Foods or Trader Joes, can't remember which) – and while the ones that work are really really good, it will make you miserable that some of them will come out tasting like slimy, soft disgusting KALE. Frito's are better!! So are those kettle fried potatoes chips.

"… trying to figure out where they can buy kale…" That was awesome. Recently a few of my friends have been posting recipes for kale chips as an alternative to regular chips on Facebook . They must be miserable.